Annotated Jimmy Cayne Portrait Sold For $12,000

Dealbreaker: Bear Stearns is gone, and now so is the portrait of fallen chief executive and company chairman Jimmy Cayne by Geoffrey Raymond, the artist who has painted Eiliot Spitzer, Jim Cramer (twice), Lloyd Blankfein and Dick Grasso. It was sold to the wife of a former Bear Stearns employee. She paid $12,000.

The multicolor painting of Cayne against a stark white canvas was on display outside Bear’s midtown headquarters, on the corner of 47th St. and Madison Avenue. Raymond handed out coloured Sharpie markers to passersby, asking them to sign the portrait. Bear employees got a red marker, shareholders a purple marker and everyone else got black.